Terms and Conditions

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Welcome to our terms. These terms set out how our services are accessed and how you can and should interact with our services. This ranges from website terms of use to how to become a student and what our courses include, to providing details as to how we use your personal information.

Please be aware that we are a UK business, and at the present time our teaching services are only available to UK residents. We apologise for any disappointment this may cause. From a practical standpoint, we have written these terms to be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales, and subject to exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts, as this is where we are based and where most of our customers live. As some of our customers may be based in Scotland, we should also say that Scottish customers have the prerogative to interpret these terms in accordance with Scottish law, subject to the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts, if they so choose.

RIGHTS OF UK CONSUMERS

UK consumers have certain rights. We expect that most of our customers are the sort of bright and inquisitive people who know their rights, but we are including a reminder here as (a) we believe it is good practice to do so, and (b) people may visit this site from outside the UK, and we do not believe it is reasonable to expect everyone in the world to know how consumers are treated in the UK.

From 1 October 2015, the rights of UK consumers will be substantially as described in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (the “CRA 2015”). As the courses we are now advertising will finish after the CRA 2015 has come into force, we are offering our service now as if the CRA 2015 were already in force. We do not believe this harms our customers’ interests in any way.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that free digital content should not cause damage to a consumer’s devices or other digital content, and that (in addition to this) paid-for digital content must be As Described, Fit for Purpose, and Of Satisfactory Quality.

If you believe that the service provided to you does not fulfil these criteria, you may be entitled to repair, replacement, or some or all of your money back. If you can show that a fault in our service has damaged your device(s) and that we have not used reasonable skill and care, you may be entitled to repair or compensation.

Please note that, under UK law, the burden of proof usually sits with the consumer – so, in the event that you were to suffer harm or loss that you felt had arisen from using our service, the onus would be upon you to prove that the harm or loss had been caused by our service, and that the harm or loss arose by a failure on our part to exercise reasonable skill and care.

UK consumers are also entitled to protection in respect of their privacy. Please click here to read more about how we seek to protect our visitors’ and customers’ privacy.

More generally, we have a duty to perform our service to you exercising Reasonable Skill and Care, as this concept is understood by the English courts.

For more information about the rights of UK consumers, please visit citizensadvice.org.uk.

For more information about the informational privacy rights of UK consumer, please visit ico.org.uk.

WHAT DO THESE TERMS COVER?

HieroEducation Partners (“HieroEducation”, or variously “us” or “we”) interacts with visitors and customers in three ways:

By providing free content on this website for marketing and informational purposes;

By providing free emails to people who have subscribed to our Mailing List;

By providing Courses to customers who have paid for said Courses.

These terms address each of these different interactions in turn.

USE OF THIS WEBSITE

(i) Limitations on Use

This website (www.hieroeducation.co.uk) is produced and maintained for marketing purposes. We are glad you are here. We do not want to discourage nice, law-abiding people like you from visiting us.

It is important to know that we do not own or host this website. This website is provided by a company called Squarespace, Inc. The Content Management System (“CMS”) underlying this site is the property of Squarespace, Inc. and they defend their rights to that property vigorously.

Please be aware that there are certain things we do not condone and that we ask all visitors to this site to respect the following restrictions. When we refer to “content”, we mean both materials produced or licensed by HieroEducation Partners and uploaded to this site and any sub-domains, and the proprietary code underlying this website that belongs to Squarespace, Inc.

You may not infringe or try to infringe the privacy or other rights of other users of this site. This includes storing or trying to store personal data or usage details of other users.

You may not infringe any applicable law (for instance copyright law) to access, view or listen to content on this website.

You may not subject the contents of this site to any derogatory treatment or use them in such a way that would bring HieroEducation Partners or Squarespace, Inc. into disrepute or cause us or them to incur liability to any third party.

You agree to use, access, view and/or listen to the content on this site as supplied to you by us and Squarespace. You may not, and you may not assist anyone to (or attempt to) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, adapt, modify, copy, reproduce, scrape, lend, hire, rent, perform, sub-license, make available to the public, create derivative works from, broadcast, distribute, commercially exploit, transmit or other use the content of this site in whole or in part except to the extent permitted by these Terms and Conditions and at law.

You may not directly or indirectly charge others for accessing, viewing or listening to any of the content, or commercialise or attempt to re-sell the content in any way, which includes advertising or selling any goods and services which offer HieroEducation Partners content or Squarespace content, including any third party software.

You may not directly or indirectly suggest any endorsement or approval by HieroEducation Partners or Squarespace, Inc. of any product, service, entity, content, belief or opinion offered by you (unless such endorsement or approval is granted to you explicitly in writing in a manner separate from this website).

You may not disrupt or try to disrupt this content. You agree not to use this content to distribute software viruses or other harmful programs, or use the content to engage in harmful, harassing, or otherwise objectionable activity, including activity inhibiting access to this content by others.

You may not harass, cause distress, or inconvenience any other person using the content or transmit obscene or offensive materials via our content.

(ii) Limitations on Liability

Access to the information on this website is free. Under UK law, you have the right to expect that the providers of a free website have used reasonable skill and care to limit the risk that using their website will damage your devices or any digital content you may have stored on them.

It is important to know that we do not own or host this website. This website is provided by a company called Squarespace, Inc.

Squarespace, Inc. is based in the United States of America and provides its services subject to the substantive and procedural laws of the state of New York (without regard to its rules on conflicts or choice of law) and, to the extent applicable, the laws of the United States of America. There is every possibility that Squarespace, Inc. might reject any claim from a consumer seeking to enforce UK consumer remedies on it. A full copy of Squarespace’s terms of service can be found here, but we would draw your attention to certain terms: this website is provided by them “as is”, “as available”, “with all faults”, “without warranty of any kind”, and (to the fullest extent permissible by applicable law), “Squarespace, Inc. shall not be liable to you or any other person for damages of any kind”. Whether Squarespace’s terms of service are fully enforceable within the EU, we cannot say, but we also note that if any portion of their terms are found to be unenforceable the remaining portion shall remain in full force and effect. Should you be curious about the nature of internet law you should seek your own legal advice from an individual or firm you consider to be competent.

Notwithstanding the above, HieroEducation Partners manage the content on this site and, as a UK business, we have a legal obligation to use reasonable skill and care to limit the risk that using this website will damage your devices or any digital content you may have stored on them. That is why we’ve selected Squarespace, Inc. as our website provider. It is our belief, arrived at following what we consider to be reasonable enquiry, that the measures taken by Squarespace, Inc. to maintain the security of their websites are substantially better than we would be able to achieve as a small business operating our own independent website, even using reasonable skill and care. This is not to say that we believe Squarespace’s security procedures to be perfect – no company can fully eliminate the security risks of operating a published website on the internet, and there remains a risk that a malicious person (or persons) may compromise this site and abuse it in a way that harms you, your devices, or your digital content. Use of the internet involves risks.

(iii) Beneficiaries of these Terms

Please note that, as this site is hosted by Squarespace, Inc. and utilises proprietary code owned by Squarespace, Inc., Squarespace, Inc. is a third party beneficiary of this “Use of this website” section and they may benefit from or choose to enforce the limitations on use and limitations on liability above.

OUR MAILING LIST

If you like, you may sign up for our Mailing List. We operate a “double opt-in” process, which means that after you’ve used the form on our website, you’ll receive an email from us asking you to confirm that you want to receive marketing materials from us. This is to prevent other people from signing you up to our Mailing List without your consent.

We will use this Mailing List to send you marketing information, promotional offers, and news about our business that we believe will be interesting to you. Since “interesting” is a subjective judgement, you may wish to unsubscribe. You may do so by clicking on the unsubscribe button in any of the emails we send you, or by using the “contact us” details on this website and sending us an email from the account that we have on our Mailing List.

When we send out marketing emails, we may include images in those emails that are stored remotely; opening the email and choosing to display the images may trigger a download that tells us information about you (e.g. that you have opened the email, and the time at which you chose to view the images). We will do this to assess whether our marketing communications are being read, and because we feel it is a fairly common practice and therefore not unfair to do so.

If you were unaware that email images may be used in this manner and are uncomfortable with the privacy implications, you may find that your email service has privacy settings that can be configured to frustrate (or limit the accuracy of) this kind of tracking.

We may also use a technology called “click tracking”. This means that, when you click on a link in one of our emails, your route over the internet to our webpage may be directed via another page. We will do this if we want to distinguish between ‘normal’ visits to our webpage and visits that have been prompted by an email. We hope this is ok with you.

Our Mailing List is operated using a service called MailChimp. You can find out how they look after your personal information here. Access to our Mailing List, and any associated marketing information, is restricted to authorised personnel at MailChimp and authorised personnel here at HieroEducation. Please bear in mind that information security is never perfect.

In the case of sample video lectures, these are genuine examples of video lectures available on our courses. They have been uploaded to the same hosting site at the same resolution, frame rate, and data rate as the other video lectures available through our courses, and have been selected by the tutor involved as being indicative of the general standard of material delivered in the course. Playback quality may vary depending on a number of factors (e.g. device used, browser, connection, other applications using the connection concurrently). To avoid disappointment, please view a sample video using the device, browser, and connection you intend to use for study during the course, ideally at the time of day you intend to study.

Our demonstration (“how it works”) videos are recording live and played substantially in “real time” using our classroom site, accessed over a residential (ADSL2+) broadband connection using a fairly modern computer. As of November 2014, 91% of UK residential broadband connections had headline connection speeds over 10Mbit/s (Source: Ofcom) so we do not believe this creates unrealistic performance expectations. If your connection is slower than ADSL2+, or your device was not recently purchased, please be aware that you may not be able to achieve an experience of the classroom environment as smooth as that shown in the demonstration videos. Experience of the classroom site will vary depending on a number of factors (e.g. device used, browser, connection, other applications using the connection concurrently).

Each course is described in a brochure, an electronic (pdf) copy of which is available at the point of purchase. In addition, prior to purchase all prospective customers are shown a reminder of the “important information” contained within the course brochure.

Students may reasonably expect that any functionality demonstrated in the “how it works” video will be present in their course. In the event that a certain piece of functionality is not offered in a given course, that exclusion will be clearly stated in the course brochure, and an amendment will be made to the “how it works” video noting any functionality that is not universally present across all courses.

We do not attempt to provide an exhaustive description listing the contents of every lecture, resource, and quiz contained in any course, and the content of class forum discussions and Live Class tuition will vary depending on the tutor’s interpretation of their students’ needs in any particular course. In each case, the contents of the course have been designed to meet the expectation set in the course synopsis by an individual we believe to be appropriately qualified, exercising what we believe to be reasonable skill and care.

(ii) Changes to the Services

It is our intention to deliver our Live Classes at the times specified on the marketing website or course brochure, and for the Supporting Materials to be made available incrementally through the Course as described on the marketing website or course brochure.

Events beyond our control

Please be aware that events beyond our control may result in us being unable to deliver all or part of the Live Classes and Supporting Materials at the pre-agreed time. Such events include (but are not limited to): fire, flood, storm, accidents, disease, sabotage, earthquakes, riots, explosions, war, labour disputes, industrial action, or critical infrastructure failure affecting either HieroEducation Partners or one or more of our key suppliers. Each such event may be called a “Force Majeure Event”.

If a Force Majeure Event causes an interruption to the intended schedule of Classes and Supporting Materials, HieroEducation Partners will: (a) notify the Class Participants as soon as we are aware of the event and able to communicate its impact; (b) use our best endeavours to work around or overcome the effect of the event; (c) keep Class Participants informed while we are attempting to work around or overcome the event; (d) reschedule any interrupted Class or Classes to time(s) mutually convenient to the Tutor and the majority of the Class Participants; and (e) may extend the duration of access to the Supporting Materials to compensate for any material disruption to their availability.

Changes by mutual consent

The times of specific Classes may also be changed for the mutual convenience of the Tutor and the majority of the Class Participants. A change to the time of a Class will not be a breach of these Terms and Conditions if: (a) it is agreed at least 48 hours in advance of the original Class time; (b) it is consented to by the Tutor and fewer than half of the Class Participants have expressed objection to the change; and (c) all Class Participants are still able to submit questions in advance and watch a playback recording of the class (in the event that they are unable to attend the Class at the new time).

(iii) Fit for Purpose

Our courses do not supply you with a guaranteed understanding of the Course subject matter. That would be impossible. Learning is an activity that requires aptitude, diligence, and investment of time (amongst other things) by the student as well as the tutor.

The purpose of our courses is to provide instruction and instructional materials presented and prepared by an individual (or individuals) suitably qualified to offer instruction in the subject matter as described in the course brochure, for the enjoyment and edification of engaged students.

If you have any other purpose in mind, please contact us prior to purchasing a course. We do not represent that our courses fulfil any purpose other than that stated above.

(iv) Of Satisfactory Quality

The quality of our courses is important to us and important to the reputations of the tutors who design and deliver our courses.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of courses is designed to be of a level suitable for adults without detailed background knowledge of the subject. As a general instruction, tutors are asked to design materials which, in their professional opinion, would be suitable as introductory materials to be delivered to a class as a part of first-year studies towards an undergraduate degree in the topic of which the course subject forms part, and they are asked to exercise a similar level of skill and care as they would apply in producing such materials. Please be aware that our classes are not subject to the same quality review procedures or examination procedures as would be applied in an institute of higher learning in the UK, and that this is a “rule of thumb” only. The course designer’s judgement is final.

Our tutors are selected based on our evaluation of their professional qualifications and experience. We will only ask a tutor to teach a course if, in our sole judgement, we believe they have the necessary subject matter expertise to provide tuition in the given subject. The name and qualifications of each course tutor are advertised in the relevant course brochure prior to purchase. If you do not believe the tutor has appropriate qualifications, do not buy the course.

Our courses are delivered digitally. Please be aware that in providing our courses to you we cannot exhaustively check every line of coding used to deliver the services, nor would it be feasible for us to check the compatibility of our coding (or third party coding) with every possible device/hardware/software configuration that prospective customers might use. In this respect, we do not warrant that the delivery of our teaching will be “free from minor defect” and it is our view that the existence of minor bugs or glitches in the means used to deliver our services to you would not automatically mean that our teaching is not of satisfactory quality. If you become aware of a bug or glitch, please let us know so that we may attempt to rectify it.

Our courses are delivered over the internet, and as such they require students to possess the appropriate devices, software, and connectivity to access the materials. The hardware, software, and connectivity requirements which we believe are necessary to enjoy a course are listed in the relevant course brochure. We do not represent that the courses will be enjoyable to students who do not possess the IT resources that we recommend.

(v) Obligations on Students

All students are asked to adhere to HieroEducation’s Code of Conduct. In addition, all students are required to take responsibility for the security of their account and password, for their activities in the Classroom, to share their postings as set out below, and refrain from criminal or malign conduct as set out below.

Failure to abide by the Code of Conduct or the conditions below may result in disciplinary action. A course tutor or Classroom administrator may take one or more of the following actions if they deem a student to have breached the Code of Conduct or the obligations set out below: (i) cautioning the student deemed to be in breach; (ii) deleting any User Postings (as defined below) deemed to be in breach; (iii) suspending the user’s ability to make User Postings; (iv) suspending the user’s access to the Classroom for a cool-down period. In the event of serious breaches (including any form of illegality), HieroEducation reserves the right to ban a user from a course. Please use the Classroom respectfully.

User account and authority

In order to participate fully in the Classroom, you will be provided a username and password with which to log in. You will be prompted to change your password to one personal to you when you first log in.

You agree that you will never divulge or share access information for your user account with any third party for any reason.

You agree that you will not access or attempt to access any other user account other than your own, or misrepresent or attempt to misrepresent your identity while using the Classroom.

Responsibility for online content

You are agree that you are responsible for your own use of our Classroom and for User Postings. “User Postings” include all content submitted, posted, published or distributed on the Classroom by you, including but not limited to all forum postings, wiki edits, notes, questions, comments, video, voice-over-IP or file uploads.

You agree that you will use our Classroom in compliance with these Terms and Conditions and all applicable local, national, and international laws, rules, and regulations, and any laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from your country of residence or other applicable export laws.

By submitting or distributing User Postings, you represent and warrant that (a) you have the necessary rights, licenses, consents and/or permissions to reproduce and publish the User Postings and to authorise HieroEducation and its users to reproduce, modify, publish and otherwise use and distribute your User Postings in a manner consistent with the license granted by you below, and (b) neither your submission of your User Postings nor the exercise of the license granted below will infringe or violate the rights of any third party. You, and not HieroEducation, are solely responsible for your User Postings and the consequences of posting or publishing them.

The Classroom may contain a forum containing the personal opinions and other expressions of persons who may post entries on a wide range of topics. Neither the User Postings on the Classroom, nor any links to other sites, are screened, moderated, approved, reviewed, or endorsed by HieroEducation or any HieroEducation participants. By posting to or viewing the forum, you agree that neither HieroEducation nor any of our suppliers are responsible or liable for the content of postings therein.

License grant to HieroEducation and HieroEducation users

By submitting or distributing your User Postings (as defined above), you hereby grant to HieroEducation a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, assignable, sub-licensable, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to host, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, modify, distribute, relicense, and otherwise use, make available and exploit your User Postings, in whole or in part, in any form and in any media formats and through any media channels (now known or hereafter developed).

By submitting or distributing your User Posting, you hereby grant to each user of the Classroom a non-exclusive license to access and use your User Postings in connection with their use of the Classroom for their own personal purposes.

Additional restrictions

For the avoidance of doubt, you agree that you will not use the Classroom in a manner intended to damage, disable, overburden or impair any HieroEducation (or HieroEducation supplier’s) server or network(s) connected to any HieroEducation (or HieroEducation supplier’s) server, or interfere with any other party’s use or enjoyment of the Classroom. You may not attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Classroom, other accounts, computer systems or networks connected to any HieroEducation (or HieroEducation supplier’s) server through hacking, password mining, or any other means. You may not obtain or attempt to obtain any materials or information stored in the Classroom, its servers, or associated computers through any means not intentionally made available through the Classroom.

(vii) Restrictions on Use of Supporting Materials and Classroom

The Supporting Materials delivered during the course are for the personal and private use of students only, and unless otherwise stated are provided on a short-term basis for the duration of the course only.

As a condition of using the Classroom, you agree not to (a) reproduce, duplicate, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Classroom other as expressly allowed under these Terms and Conditions; (b) use HieroEducation’s (or any HieroEducation supplier’s) name, trademarks, server or other material in connection with, or to transmit, any unsolicited communications or emails; (c) use any high-volume, automated, or electronic means to access the Classroom (including without limitation, robots, spiders, scripts or web-scraping tools); or (d) frame the Classroom, place pop-up windows over its pages or otherwise affect the display of material.

Unless indicated as being in the Public Domain, the content of the Classroom is protected by United Kingdom and foreign copyright laws. Unless otherwise expressly stated, the texts, tests, exams, videos, images and other instructional materials provided with the courses offered through the Classroom are for your personal use in connection with the course only.

Certain reference documents, articles, images and other information in the Classroom are used with the permissions of third parties, and use of the information is subject to certain rules and conditions, which will be posted along with the information. By using the Classroom, you agree to respect and abide by any such rules and conditions.

All rights in the Classroom and its content, if not expressly granted, are reserved.

(viii) Miscellaneous

Age Restrictions

Participation in our classes is restricted to individuals over 18 years of age, emancipated minors, or those who possess legal parental or guardian consent, and who are fully able and competent to enter into the terms, conditions, representations and obligations contained in these Terms and Conditions. By registering and participating in services or functions of the Classroom, you hereby represent that you are over 18 years of age, an emancipated minor, or possess legal parental or guardian consent, and are fully able and competent to enter into the terms, conditions, representations and obligations contained in these Terms and Conditions. In any case, you affirm that you are over the age of 16, as the Classroom is not intended for children under 16. If you are under 16, please do not use our Classroom.

Refund Policy

For a period of fourteen (14) calendar days from the date at which access to the course Classroom is opened (the “cancellation period”), you may cancel your booking of the course and request a full refund without need for explanation by emailing gus@hieroeducation.co.uk. Please include your full name and user ID in your request. Refunds will be credited to the card on which the course was booked and may take up to thirty (30) days to process. HieroEducation has no obligation to issue a refund after the cancellation period, but if you would like to cancel your course for personal reasons please contact us and explain the circumstances of the request.

Entire Agreement

These Terms and Conditions, the Code of Conduct, and our Privacy Policy together constitute the entire agreement between you and HieroEducation Partners with respect to your use of our Classroom and other services.

Waiver and Severability

The failure of HieroEducation to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms and Conditions shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of these Terms and Conditions is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavour to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision and the other provisions of these Terms and Conditions shall remain in full force and effect.

Changes to the Terms and Conditions

We may change our Terms and Conditions from time to time.

For students who have signed up for but who have yet to begin their courses, we shall give notice of any changes and ask their consent (or, if withheld, cancel and refund their purchase).

For students whose courses are in progress, we shall give notice and ask for their consent (or, if withheld, we may cancel their access and make a partial refund of their course based on the amount of course remaining which they have chosen not to complete).

Our Terms and Conditions are designed to maintain the integrity of our courses and compliance with applicable legislation, and any changes shall be implemented with those criteria in mind.

Effective Date

These Terms and Conditions are effective from 9 August 2015.

CODE OF CONDUCT

All students participating in any Course must agree to abide by the following Code of Conduct:

I will register for only one account and not let anyone else use my username and/or password.

I will complete all tests and exams with my own work and only my own work. I will not submit the work of another person.

I will not post answers to tests or exams or any other problems that are being used to assess student performance.

I will not engage in any other activities that will dishonestly improve my results or dishonestly improve or harm the results of other students.

I will not e-mail, post or otherwise upload any of the following content:

Content that defames, harasses or threatens others;

Content that discusses illegal activities with the intent to commit them;

Content that infringes or misappropriates another’s intellectual property, including, but not limited to, copyrights or trademarks;

Profane, pornographic, obscene, indecent or unlawful content;

Advertising or any form of commercial solicitation;

Content related to partisan political activities;

Content related to the evangelisation or propagation of any religion, faith, non theistic or atheist tradition or belief system;

Content that otherwise harms other users or visitors to the site;

Content that is otherwise unlawful or that violates any applicable local, state, national or international law;

Content that probes, scans, or tests the vulnerability of any system or network;

Content that breaches or otherwise circumvents any security measures;

Content that interferes with or disrupts any user, host, or network, for example by sending a virus, overloading, flooding, spamming, or mail-bombing any other user or part of the Sites;

Content that plants malware or otherwise uses the Sites to distribute malware;

Content that discloses your ethnicity, political affiliations, religion, membership of any trade union, physical or mental health, sexual preferences and practices, criminal activities, or any allegations of criminal activity against you (including any information concerning the status of any ongoing investigation or court proceedings against you).

Please note that we may make changes to this Code of Conduct from time to time. For students who have signed up for but who have yet to begin their classes, we shall give notice of the changes and ask their consent (or otherwise cancel and refund their purchase). For students whose courses are in progress, we shall give notice and ask for their consent (or, if withheld, cancel their access and make a partial refund of their course based on the amount of course remaining which they have chosen not to complete). Our Code of Conduct is designed to maintain the integrity of our courses and compliance with applicable legislation, and any changes shall be implemented with those criteria in mind.